Standee wrote:so, society is as it always has been then, the have's have because they make sure they have, the have nots blame the have's because they have not, without taking responsibility to better/improve their lot, and people get drunk and fight/court/mate on their days off?
2013/1813 no different in behaviour, just different in outfits.
No, that is far too simplistic.
Over the years we as a society gradually moved away from the appalling way the poor were treated from around the time of Dickens to a state in the later half of the 20th century where there truly was a social contract.
The gap between the "haves" and the rest was then nothing like as great as it has become in a few short years recently. People had rights and people didn't expect million pound golden goodbye's when they screwed up a companies prospects. The current government would take the reduction in workers rights even further than Thatcher and with remuneration committee's senior corporate life is just one big trough.
In short we are regressing not progressing and it is as if we are returning to a time of the landed gentry ruling over us meek citizens. This time the "haves" are not the Lords and Earl's but the technocrats, bankers and so on.
Also these days the concept of philanthropy seems dead. Our history peppered with the acts of enlightened people who were very well off who worked out it might be a good thing to look after their workers and, shock horror, some even did it not because they wanted to get more hours out of them but simply because it was the right thing to do.
This from above sums it up very well:
"The social contract is broken. Everyone knows their rights, far fewer know their responsibilities."
I am convinced that wasn't the case not that long ago.
